Last week Energywise reminded that doing right by the environment is more complicated than simply downsizing the carbon footprint. Shifting to soot-free power sources will reduce mortality in cities, we noted, while increased use of variable wind power could jack up emissions of smog-forming NOx from the 'peaking power' plants that ramp up and down to balance electrical supply and demand. Now power grid modelers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory add another twist to this story with a report that electric vehicles (EVs) plugged into …

The dramatic reversals in U.S. air regulation, reported and discussed two weeks ago, are proving nettlesome not just for environmentalists and for some of the parties that had challenged rules in court, but for the energy industry generally. John Dizard reports this week in London's Financial Times that utilities had spent upwards of $75 billion for SO2 and NOx retrofits to meet the rules that now have been overturned. Dizard quotes a source at the Washington law firm Bracewell & Giuliani saying that just the lost value of SO2 emissions allowances could come to $15-20 billion. PPL, a …

The dramatic reversals in U.S. air regulation, reported and discussed two weeks ago, are proving nettlesome not just for environmentalists and for some of the parties that had challenged rules in court, but for the energy industry generally. John Dizard reports this week in Londonâ''s Financial Times that utilities had spent upwards of $75 billion for SO2 and NOx retrofits to meet the rules that now have been overturned. Dizard quotes a source at the Washington law firm Bracewell & Giuliani saying that just the lost value of SO2 emissions allowances could come to $15-20 billion. PPL, a …

Actually it's almost as if in a game of Monopoly, you somehow drew Community Chest and Chance cards simultaneously, and both told you to go back to Go. On Friday, July 11, Environmental Protection Agency head Stephen L. Johnson announced the agency would not try to impose restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, despite findings of a staff report he was releasing. The same day, in another part of town, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit threw out a plan the EPA adopted several years ago to reduce soot and smog, saying it was so flawed in so …

Actually itâ''s almost as if in a game of Monopoly, you somehow drew Community Chest and Chance cards simultaneously, and both told you to go back to Go. On Friday, July 11, Environmental Protection Agency head Stephen L. Johnson announced the agency would not try to impose restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, despite findings of a staff report he was releasing. The same day, in another part of town, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit threw out a plan the EPA adopted several years ago to reduce soot and smog, saying it was so flawed in so …